Consumer adoption of mobile devices, such as cellular telephones, laptop computers, pagers, personal digital assistants, and the like, has increased dramatically over recent years. With this increasing demand comes an ever growing need to provide users with reliable network access, including during air travel or other high speed modes of transportation. Currently, many commercial aircraft are configured with terrestrial based network access systems for providing low speed or limited bandwidth service. Unfortunately, these systems are seldom capable of providing the high speed, high bandwidth network access users are accustomed to when their devices are within range of a cell site at ground level. In addition, most cell sites feature antennas that transmit signals towards the ground rather than towards aircraft. Still further, the high speed of the aircraft during travel along with the weak signal link (power) from the mobile device to the antenna located at ground level limits network access.